Constant battle for contract

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brookline Educators Union (BEU) has advocated for a fair contract from the Brookline School Committee (BSC). The 2021-2022 school year is now the third year in a row where educators and staff find themselves without a contract securing their jobs.

The constant struggle of balancing a workload many teachers believe is unsustainable and fighting for a contract is an experience many educators face on a day-to-day basis.

Despite making their intentions clear and setting future goals, some community members believe the BEU advocating for a new contract is harmful to the schools.

Conner said a fair contract would help solve many pressing issues for teachers.

“There’s a narrative in Brookline that the contract is about teachers doing less, but the thing is that, we’re all at capacity and above capacity anyway,” Conner said. “So I see the contract as the structure in which we do our work with each other. And if the structure and the set of expectations and policies are unrealistic and unsustainable, then it’s a recipe for teacher burnout, which is a recipe for not supporting students.”

Hernandez said the BSC’s neglect of teachers’ mental health is especially stressful.

“It’s frustrating when we have to sit with the school committee about what we need for our mental health, our basic needs as teachers and this is for our students. For them to always say no, is very stressful,” Hernandez said.

Conner said the increasing amount of work inside and outside the classroom should be noticed and rewarded.

“I think very concretely, what the district and administration can do would be to push for professional expertise that honors the incredible and insane amount of work we put in in the past couple of years and that does not amount to a pay cut because of inflation these days,” Conner said. “That is a stress that doesn’t have to be there.”

Hayden said the town’s dedication to its quality of education has significantly decreased as a result of ongoing disputes regarding contracts that tire out teachers.

“This is my 21st year at the high school. I don’t know if there’s been one contract negotiation that’s gone well. It saddens me that in a town that’s so committed, at least in theory, to good schools that we struggled to come up with an agreement between the school committee and the union negotiating committee that is appropriate and meaningful for the teachers’ needs,” Hayden said. “This is a town that people moved to for the schools, and yet there seems to be constant tension between the union and the school committee, which is too bad.”

Lantos also said the main group that has misconceptions about the jobs and responsibilities of educators are many of the parents in the community.

“{The unfairness of the school committee} is driven, in part, by some small, vocal parent minority, that’s like, ‘the teachers have it too easy,’ ‘they’re getting paid too much’, ‘they have the summers off,” Lantos said.

In addition to returning back to in-person instruction, teachers have to make sure they are following COVID-19 safety precautions and handling increased class sizes. Driscoll said the stress of contract negotiations and advocacy takes time away from other responsibilities.

“If we can get {the contract} done, that would be a major relief of stress and frustration and irritation in general,” Driscoll said. “It’s just been so time-consuming, and so much time and energy has been spent on those things. It would be great if we could just move on beyond that stuff and not have to deal with these things for at least a couple of years.”

James said balancing the challenges of being part of the BEU means having an active voice while still considering the impacts of her actions.

“It crosses my mind, ‘Am I allowed to speak up for my rights? Or do I basically not have any?’ If I’m a part of the union, I need to be an active member of the union,” James said. “I’m not going to expect them to do things on my behalf if I’m not participating in the life of the work. But it is always in the back of my mind, like, ‘Oh, I wonder if I’ll suffer retribution because of this?’”

One of the BEU’s main proposals is to have open-bargaining sessions with the BSC over contract negotiations. Currently, only select members of the BEU and BSC negotiate over the contract and no one else in the public has access to these conversations.

Gorlin said the unclear nature of the contract alongside additional stressors is demoralizing.

“I think about the layers of administration above me, and it feels a little bit more demoralizing. I think it’s just hard to know where we are. Last year was such a dramatic upheaval that there was just a lot of stress on supporting one another,” Gorlin said.

Conner said supporting her students is the number one priority, even if she does not feel respected by the school committee.

“I have never felt so dispirited about not having a contract. Our work isn’t valued,” Conner said. “Professionally, I’m working incredibly hard to still do all of that reworking of curriculum and reaching out to individual kids and families and trying to really create a meaningful container in the classroom every day that supports kids, no matter what we’re coming in with.”

The BSC was unable to be reached for a comment.